Krystal Montesdeoca, Spanish Major, East Asian Studies, Japanese minor

Krystal Montesdeoca was recently awarded a $25,000 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to study and carry out community service abroad in the Spring or Fall of 2009.
Krystal, who is a graduate of Illinois State University's Metcalf and University High lab schools, is a student in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. She is a Spanish major and a minor in Japanese. She speaks English, Spanish, and Japanese fluently, and is semi fluent in Portuguese. She has also studied German here at Illinois State. She said, "Everyone has his or her own strength, mine is languages. Being brought up bilingual has allowed me to appreciate different languages and cultures, and has allowed me to learn languages faster to be able to communicate with people from different cultures."
This will not be the first time that Krystal has studied abroad. While she was a student at University High she studied in Japan. "It changed my life; it allowed me to become more independent."
Krystal, who is currently a junior, was the youngest of all the applicants. She has been placed in Brazil. Dr. Daniel Everett, Chair of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, commented, "In our Department, we emphasize the learning of languages as part of a wider cultural experience that engages the entire person, not merely their ability to memorize lists of words and grammatical rules. Krystal's accomplishment represents the very best of the attitude to language learning that it is our goal to cultivate."